3 Concepts

From the insights the three concepts that I believed would answer the problems were,

(1) A redesign of the insulin pump to make it more discrete and easy to manage, placing it on the wrist for an easy to see and use place.

(2) for people who mix their insulins: a machine which would measure the amount of each insulin needed and mix them itself, most people who mix their insulin either take mixed insulin in the morning at breakfast or at night with dinner.

(3) an idea that focuses on bringing light into the equipment.

When I took these ideas forward to my tutorial group, they believed that either (2) or (3) could be brought forward, they were the most interesting ideas.

To decide which concept to go with I decided to write a survey and post it on diabetic reddit to see what people thought of the insights:

Most of the responses from the questions suggested that mixing your own insulins was an out of date method and Most, almost all of the responses wanted some form of light on their equipment to help them out.

Insights and further desk research

The insights which were gained from the Diabetes Scotland visit where:

Looking at all of the insights, I did some desk research into diabetes and the equipment to see if there was anything already out there that would help.

• Different insulins fit into different pens:

Tried to get into contact with manufacturing companies to enquire why there are so many different insulin pens and only certain insulins fit into them

• Teenagers might like a more technology related product

Connected to their phones, as well as this maybe more discrete object and better aesthetics. 

• Something to fit in with what you are wearing

more discrete for a night out, not as obtrusive. There are already USB sized glucose meters however you still need testing strips and lancet separately

• make existing items more user friendly

This insight is an overall insight which will be applied to the product that is designed anyway. Morag says, 'Glucose meters are a bit clunky', pens and pumps are also a bit heavy to carry around.

• blood testing in the dark

there are glucose meters with lights on them however they are not focused on the lancet and they can be expensive.

• wastage

A lot of material is wasted, like the lancets, packaging, testing strips and devices which help to place the insulin pump into your skin.

• visually impaired and people with dexterity problems

There is already a talking glucose meter, this would be for the older generation. There is not enough equipment out there that helps with their needs.

• something to help mix insulin

People just mix insulin the old fashioned way by pulling out as much of the liquid as need be into a needle then doing the same for the liquid which is getting mixed. this is inaccurate.

• tool to help count carbohydrates

Diabetics have to make sure they know how much carbohydrates that they eat, it is essential when calculating the does of insulin needed.

From these insights I decided to focus on:

• Something to fit in with what you are wearing- referring to the insulin pumps
• Blood testing in the dark
• Something to help mix insulin when needed. 

I chose these insights as i felt they had more of a broader aspect to them and could be developed upon widely. 

Meeting with Diabetes Scotland

For my initial research I got in contact with Diabetes Scotland to see if anyone could sit down and talk to me about Diabetes, as I did not know a lot about what having diabetes involved.
Morag Ramsay was nice enough to get back in contact and arrange a meeting to talk about having diabetes. She has type 1 herself and has had Diabetes since she was a child. So her knowledge of the diabetic equipment and what is involved is large.

We arranged to meet yesterday and the meeting was very useful to gain insights into the equipment used by diabetics and how it could be improved. She started off by showing us how people went about testing their blood, going through the process, step by step

The equipment: The glucose meter, the lancet, the test strips 

Using the lancet to extract blood, testing blood your whole life will make your fingers hard so using different areas of the hand 

Then using the test strip and glucose meter to measure the glucose level of the blood.

She also explained the different insulins and pens that go with them, the different devices which are used to measure blood glucose and gives an insight into how people with diabetes feel and respond to the different devices. 

Morag herself has an insulin pump which monitors the insulin levels in the blood and administers insulin as well. She showed us how she puts the insulin pump into her stomach, showing us this on a harder surface than a stomach.

squeeze sides to inject needle

Press down

and pull off and the tube and sticky part will be left.

This trip to Diabetes Scotland was very useful to gain more information on diabetes and what to look into which might be useful to develop on.

SCOTSMAN 2

The topic of this blog is going to be the project that I was given by Product design engineering course. It is called SCOTSMAN 2 and is based on the briefs made up from the previous project.

In SCOTSMAN 1 we were allocated groups and had to come up with a topic in which we were interested in and was a good cause to develop a product for, with insights into where a product could be developed. We needed to create a brief for the topic which would then be carried on to SCOTSMAN 2.

 SCOTSMAN stands for:
S-solution
C-competition
O-only me
T-timescale
S-size
M-money
A-authority
N-need

This definition was needed to be used to show that the topic which was chosen was viable. Once this had been achieved people chose one of the 8 topics for continuing onto SCOTSMAN 2.

The topics were Fishermen, food shortage, diabetes, flooding in the UK, smoking, drinking, dakar rally and grow your own food. From these topics I chose Diabetes, I felt it was the most interesting topic and one which I could develop a product which would be useful.

From the brief there were 3 different groups in which we could focus on, children, teenagers and the elderly all with their own different issues to do with dealing with diabetes.
The brief also states:
'In summary when redesigning diabetes testing, monitoring and administrating
equipment focus closely on what the specific user requires, how the whole
process can be streamlined, how it can be linked to appropriate data to aid the
experience and how best to integrate with emerging technology to enhance
usability.'

I decided to focus on all 3 different groups to start off with.

To start of my research I got in contact with Morag Ramsay from Diabetes Scotland, to see if I could get a meeting with her and talk to her about the different areas, that she as a diabetic and someone who has personal knowledge of the equipment, would know which needs developed on.